There’s More Than One Way To Strategically Develop Your Portfolio

I get a lot of emails from readers with large portfolios and not idea of what to do with them. I usually help people determine which names are good candidates for development and which would be better for re-sale. The question that I hear a lot is, “what is the best way to monetize my portfolio?”

This is a good question and with many opinions in the Domaining space it can be quite confusing for a new Domainer. Some people say Mini-Sites are the way to go, others say you need to build full-scale brands, some people use blogging platforms like WordPress, some like Amazon stores…all different ways to make money with your domains.

It’s often that you’ll hear someone talk about one model that they like and all the other models that didn’t work for them. People are afraid of failure and oftentimes look for easy money, if it doesn’t come they give-up and declare, “that method doesn’t work!” I’ve heard it about parking, I’ve heard it about affiliate programs, the same complaints…but the fact of the matter is there are people making a six-figure salary from parking and from affiliate programs every year. Just because you aren’t one of them (I’m not either!) doesn’t mean it’s not possible.

I know this has been a long way to answer a simple question…but it’s important to understand that all of these development strategies work, if you do it right, give proper focus, and start with the right name. In 2007, 2008, and 2009 I deployed a ton of Mini-Sites, one of the best moves I’ve ever made. It was a great way to see which sites had the best potential and to generate way more revenue than I could parking. Turning my better Mini-Sites into brands has been the next step in the process and the results so far have been incredible.

At the same time I now have about 10 active WordPress sites that I try to update at least weekly. So am I saying that you should go Mini-Sites all the way? Or WordPress blogs? Or should you just develop brands like Kayaking.org and Bimmer.co? The answer is – you should do it all, but in digestible chunks, one site at a time. Domainers get overwhelmed by a large portfolio of names, they think they have to solve the problem all at once.

It’s all about looking at one domain at a time. The idea is not to get overwhelmed but instead get focused. I have Mini-Sites that still provide a nice income, WordPress sites that have growing traffic and ranking every month, and full scale brands like Kayaking.org that I give a majority of my time. Right now Kayaking.org gets almost 100% of my focus, I have firm goals for the site, a great team that I’ve put-together, and the focus to get it done.

Now for the simple answer to the question, what is the best way to monetize my portfolio?

The best way to monetize your portfolio is to focus on one domain at at time, set goals, hit them, then take that winning model and repeat. Every domain is different, you will learn with each development…but if you don’t take the time to learn and try to monetize your domains all at once how can you expect good results?

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton